tfenrich

Excellent little neighborhood restaurant, worth diverting for if you are in the Monterey Bay area. Specializes mostly in fish (from non-overfished stock) with interesting, forever changing preparations. Delicious appetizers, splendid wine list with lots of coverage regional and international, wines priced at retail (not at restaurant markup!) with a staff that is not only friendly and accomodating (had to ask for a bandaid), but also very knowledgable about the food and the extensive wine selection, and will take the time to narrow down with you in very unpretentious terms what type of wine you like.

A little French food gem in downtown Campbell — owners are French and they have the basics down pat. Very friendly staff, comping us to an extra drink (we had just ordered one to share) and offering excellent advice on the menu. Count on superbly executed French bistro fare, with a little twist here and there. Extremely fond of both appetizer dishes (more inventive) and main courses. Ambiance suffers a little from the cramped stripmall-style interior, but the bar seems like a nice place and there’s an sidewalk patio.

Cool and interesting setting in the Mission — while we were seated inside and couldn’t really partake in the screening of the movie on the (large) outside patio, at least we weren’t freezing. Great concept, though!
The food was mostly equally interesting and good, uniformally good, wth impeccable service. I went there for a birthday dinner, and they added a nice touch by serving dessert with a candle on it. Nice!
For first courses, we shared the red and yellow watermelon salad with a very creamy and soft goat cheese, which I liked very much. Nice chunks for coarse salt cause little flavor bursts! We also had the beef carpaccio with arugula, horseradish cream and shaved parmesan. The beef was a little too thinly sliced for my taste, and not very flavorful. The horseradish was too creamy, no bite came through. Overall, a bit boring, but still good.
We had the Steak Bavette, which was a nice cut, but not overly juicy. It was good, with tasty heirloom potatoes, delicous sauce (mostly deglazed pan drippings, it seemed), and fingerling potatoes and some greens. Tasty and well executed, but nothing to write home about.
Much better was the halibut, which we had a second entree. This was served with fig and olive paste and some greens and was very flavorful and moist. Absolutely the dish of the evening!
Dessert was also very good: a yummy and dense gateaux au chocolat with marinated cherries and a (citrus?) panecotta with a dollop of cream and blackberry sauce, which provided a nice fruity and creamy closing highlight that was light on the palate — which at that point was exactly what was needed.
Portions overall are small but absolutely adequate, although obviously not meant for sharing.

Went there for dinner — very nice experience in all, but I was not sure what all the hype was about. We had a nice salad for starters, safran (?) mussels and fries, troute amandine for entrees and a mousse au chocolat for dessert (the last two probably the two most ho-hum dishes we had that evening, although definitely tasty). The interpretations (not all that daring) of the standard brasserie/bistro fare were all very well done, the quality excellent and the tastes delicious but… it’s just the basics. Definitely worth checking it out if you are already in the area or are lining up more adventurous culinary destinations in addition.